Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)

She had to ask. "Where are your wings?"

Jason gave her an inscrutable look, then flared out a wing in silence. It was a deep, sooty black. The wing didn't reflect light but seemed to absorb it, the edges fading into the spreading gloom. "Wow," she said. "Guess you make one hell of a night scout."

Jason glanced from her to Raphael. "The report can wait, but it's important you hear it."

"I'll join you in an hour."

"Sire, if early evening would suit, I'd like to fly out to check on something else."

"Contact me when you return."

With a short nod, Jason left. Elena didn't say anything until after both she and Raphael had cleaned up and were tucking into the food Jeeves had brought up. But first things first. "Your butler laundered my clothes," she said from her cross-legged position on the bed. The cargos and T-shirt from yesterday had been waiting for her, washed and ironed.

Raphael raised an eyebrow in front of her, having chosen to sit on the bed, too, one leg on the mattress, the other foot-first on the floor beside it, his injured wing draped gently across the sheets to promote optimal healing. To her pleasure-and she was too achy and frustrated to lie to herself about how he made her feel-he'd asked her to spread a special ointment on the injured section. She knew full well it was a measure of how their relationship had changed that he'd kept her with him while he was injured. No Dmitri tying her to a chair this time. "I highly doubt that," he said now. "Montgomery runs the house-he'd never sully himself washing clothes."

"You know what I mean, Archangel. He's like the house-work fairy-only better!"

"Somehow, the idea of Montgomery as a fairy doesn't have the same effect on me as it appears to have on you."

"Give it time." She bit into her everything-and-more sandwich. "So, Jason's your spy. Or should I say, spymaster?"

"Very good, Guild Hunter." He ate the other half of the sandwich in about three bites. "Though some would say his face makes him too distinctive."

"That tattoo-it had to have hurt." She winced, having been too chicken to get inked herself. Ransom had tried to talk her into one when he'd gotten the band around his arm. Watching the blood being blotted off his skin hadn't inspired her to follow suit . "How long do you think it took?"

"Exactly ten years," Raphael said, watching her with those eyes that seemed to see straight through to her soul.

She shook her head as she finished off the sandwich. "Crazy comes in all forms, I guess."

Raphael held up an apple. "A bite?"

"Tempting me, Archangel?"

"Ah, but you've already fallen, hunter." He used a sharp knife to cut into the fruit and put a slice to her lips, watching her bite off the end with concentrated interest. "Your mouth fascinates me."

The languid heat in her body, ever present around Raphael, seemed to grow, spread, until it was in every part of her, a living, demanding beat. Swallowing her bite of apple, she crawled around the food to kneel in front of him. When he raised the rest of the slice to her lips, she bit down, holding on to his wrist.

Eyes locked, the living warmth of him against her fingertips, it was more erotic than a kiss from another man. Her lips brushed his fingers.

Something hot and male spread across his face, a look that told her very well where he wanted her to put her lips. But what he said was, "Another slice?"

She shook her head with regret. "You have to heal and I need to start running the trace again." Uram couldn't have gone far. Most likely he'd been forced to return to one of his earlier hiding places. Which meant there was a high chance it was in the circuit they'd already mapped out. "This could be our best shot."

Raphael put down the knife and the rest of the apple, tracing her lips with his finger. "Did you hear what Michaela said?"

"That he's all monster?" She shrugged, even as lust snaked around her like a heady perfume. "No surprise after what we saw at that warehouse."

"Would you hunt me, Elena? If I became bloodborn?"

Her heart froze in her chest. "Yes," she said. "But you'll never become a monster." Yet she remembered the knife cutting into her hand, remembered, too, that vampire in Times Square.

A humorless smile. "That's hope, not knowledge." He shook his head. "We're all as susceptible to the lure of power. The blood makes him stronger, harder to defeat."

Cupping his face in her hands, she looked into eyes that had seen thousands of sunrises before she was even a glimmer in the scheme of the universe. "But you have an advantage," she whispered. "You're a little bit human now."

Angel of Blood

They thought he was down.

That was their mistake.

Agony shot through his wing and chest as remnants of Raphael's blue fire attempted to take hold and burrow. Gritting his teeth, he left his hiding place and flew a short distance to a normally inviting public area that had turned murky in the cloudy weather, full of shadowy corners that made it the perfect hunting ground. The glamour served him well, and he tore out the throats of two vagrants before they ever knew they were stalked.

Their blood raced through him like lightning, pushing out the blue fire until it dissipated harmlessly in the air. No longer fighting off an attack, his body focused on repairing torn muscle and cartilage. By the time he bent his head over the fifth throat-the soft, delicate flesh of a young female, his preferred kind of sustenance-he was ready to fly again . . . at least enough to take the mortal hunter out of the equation. Once she was dead, no one would be able to find him.

He smiled and wiped the blood from his mouth with a clean white handkerchief. Yes, warm was best. For a tempting moment, he considered taking another, but knew he didn't have the time. He had to hit before he was expected, while Raphael's defenses were down and the hunter thought herself safe.

After that, he would sink his fangs into Michaela's heart, drink her blood straight from the source. And he'd keep her, he decided. The urge to tear her apart was overwhelming, but he'd fight it. Why kill that which could provide so much exquisite power? Mortals were too weak, but an archangel . . . Ah, he could drink from Michaela for eternity. She'd heal every time.

He wondered if Michaela had told Raphael he'd already fed from her once. He licked his lips. She'd been sweet. Powerful. Piquant. And now she carried a little bit of him within. Yes, an archangel would make the most perfect of refreshments. He'd build her a pretty cage, so she could watch as he played with his other pets-so she'd know that she was the lucky one, the one he'd chosen to sustain him for eons.

But first, he had to break the hunter's neck.

Raphael walked out onto the third-floor balcony, Elena's words still vivid in his mind. You're a little bit human now.

Lijuan had warned him to kill Elena for that very reason. His reaction to being shot, the pain, the blood, had strengthened his belief that this hunter was dangerous to him. But what if, with the danger, came something else, an immunity to the madness of power, of age? After all, he'd wakened from the Quiet much sooner than he should have.

As he waited for Jason to arrive, he considered who he'd been when he first met Elena. He'd torn into her mind, terrorizing her without the least care. Could he do so again? Yes, he thought, having no illusions as to his natural goodness. He was fully capable of doing the same again. But whether he'd choose to do it . . . there lay the true question.

Jason entered the balcony from above, landing in a neat way that made him the most perfect of spies. "I expected to see Illium here."

"He's keeping watch over Elena." Raphael would've preferred to give her a vampiric driver as well, but another vampire that close would hamper her ability to pick up Uram's trail. So she was driving herself, with Illium flying above. Raphael was housebound by his angelfire-scored wing-it was healing at a rapid pace, and he could still fly, but to do so would strain the injury and he needed to be in top condition for when Uram rose again.

Elena had been gone for most of the day, calling him with updates as she cleared one section of Manhattan after another. It was strange to realize that despite having a myriad of other matters on his plate, he . . . missed her. She'd become important to him, this mortal with the spirit of a warrior. "Now, tell me."

"It's as you thought," Jason said. "Lijuan wakes the dead."

Raphael felt the biting freshness of the water-tinged breeze coming off the river, and wondered if Lijuan would be as she was if she hadn't killed the human who'd threatened to make her a little bit mortal. "Are you certain?"

"I saw her raise them."

"Do they live?" He turned to face the other angel.

Deep revulsion whispered in the depths of Jason's eyes. "I wouldn't call it life, but there is some spark within, some glimmer of the person they once were."

This was worse than anything Raphael had thought. "Not puppets as we believed?"

"They are that, but they're also more. Abominations that walk, see, hear but never talk. Their silence is drowned out by the screams in their eyes. They know what they are."

Even an archangel's soul could feel the chill hand of horror. "How long can she maintain them?"

"Of the reborn I saw, the oldest was a year old. He was starting to become senile, that spark long gone." A pause, and then the usually temperate angel said, "It's a mercy when that part of their soul dies."

"And Lijuan has complete control over these reborn?"

"Yes. For now, she plays with them as one would with a new toy. But there may come a time when she turns them into an army."

That cold hand closed around his heart. For if the reborn marched on the living, civilization would fall as terror overtook the world. "Those she wakes-are they the newly dead?"

"No," was the disturbing answer. "Those are easier, but she's begun on the older dead-even those that have . . . rotted. She's somehow able to clothe them in flesh." Jason paused.

"What is it?"

"It's rumored their new flesh comes from consuming the bodies of the more recently dead, the ones Lijuan does not wish to reawaken, and I know they must then drink blood to survive." Jason's voice dropped even lower. "There are also whispers that she gains something from the rebirths, somehow absorbs power."

A bloodborn of another sort, Raphael thought, knowing that no hunter had been born-human, vampire, or angel-who could destroy Lijuan should that prove true. "Have your men maintain watch." Jason was the perfect spy, but as Elena had guessed, he was an even better spymaster. "We must know if she begins large-scale rebirths." The Cadre of Ten could do little while Lijuan played in her own lands. More, most of the members would choose to do little. They each had their own games, their own perversions. Raphael couldn't judge them-he'd countenance no interference in his domain, either.

Elena saw a fragment of humanity in him. But was he human enough to save himself from becoming another Lijuan? "Go. Rest. We'll talk more later."

Jason dropped off the balcony before rising in a steep climb, his wings visible until he rose up above the cloud layer. It was why the angel much preferred the night.

Dmitri.

Sire. The response was close. The vampire entered the balcony a few moments later, having just returned from their healers. "Venom reports that the cleanup at and around Jeffrey Deveraux's office, as well as at the museum, was completed earlier this afternoon. Geraldine is dead."

Raphael's first thought was of Elena-she'd be saddened at the death, though the woman had been all but a stranger. "What of the survivor we found at the warehouse?"

"I was able to trace her identity. Her name is Holly Chang, age twenty-three." Dmitri folded his hands behind his back. "She doesn't carry the mutant variant of the toxin, but she does carry something."

Raphael remembered his conversation with Elena. "Does she need to die?"

"Not at this stage. She's not contagious-and we need to discover the truth of whatever it is Uram did to her."

"Is she human still?"

Dmitri paused, frowned. "No one is certain what she is-she needs blood, but not as much as a vampire, and she does gain some energy from food. She may be the result of an aborted attempt at conversion."

"Without the proper procedure and with the mutant strain in Uram's blood, it should have been impossible."

"The healers and doctors think she may simply have been unlucky enough to be one of those who are easily Made-but now that she's been partially transformed, an attempt at full conversion may kill her." There was a long-buried edge in Dmitri's voice. Like Holly Chang, Dmitri had been Made against his will.

All because Isis had known Raphael's weakness-that he had a heart. More, she'd known that Dmitri was the descendant of a mortal Raphael had once called friend. So she'd stolen Dmitri's mortality . . . and made Raphael watch. That had been almost a thousand years ago. And Raphael had thought his heart dead for most of them.

Before Elena began to matter.

"Be easy, Dmitri," he said now. "We won't abuse her, but we must monitor her progress." If she carried the taint of the bloodborn, she had to die.

Dmitri nodded. "I've got her under twenty-four-hour watch." Another pause. "If I may, sire."

"Since when do you ask for permission?"

The vampire's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Elena makes you vulnerable. I don't know how, but she does." His eyes went to the injured wing. "You're healing at a slower rate."

"Perhaps an immortal needs a vulnerability," Raphael said, thinking once more of Lijuan's "evolution."

"I-" A cell phone rang.

Raphael nodded at Dmitri to go ahead and answer, readying himself to take off. Dmitri's raised hand stopped him. "It's the Guild Director."

Raphael took the phone. "Director."

"I don't know what the hell you've got Ellie into but I have a feeling it has to do with the girls disappearing around town." Her dislike of him was a taut thread that vibrated with pure anger.

"Elena is lucky to have you for a friend."

"If anything happens to her, I don't care who you are, I'll shoot you myself." Worry mingled with the violent anger to turn her voice harsh.

Had it been anyone but Sara making the threat, Raphael would've meted out swift punishment-perceived weakness in an archangel could lead to death for millions. But he'd never been a hypocrite. He'd done unconscionable things in the Quiet, crossed an inviolable line when he forced this woman to betray one of her deepest loyalties. The scales were not close to even. "Do you have something to share, Director?"

"Five bodies were just found in Battery Park, all drained of blood. They were hidden very well."

Uram had acted fast to replenish his energy. "Have the authorities been alerted?"

"Sorry, couldn't stop it," Sara said, telling him she had her finger very much on the pulse of the city. "But the bodies are in transit in morgue vans-I'm guessing you have to make them disappear. Don't kill the attendants when you do it."

"That won't be necessary." Sometime after his two-hundredth birthday, Venom had gained the power to entrance humans, much as a cobra did its prey-something Raphael was sure Elena would be aghast to discover. The vampire used it rarely as Neha would not be pleased to realize she'd lost so valuable an asset. However, it would come in useful today-none of Uram's victims could be allowed to be put under the microscope. Holly might be the only survivor, but that didn't mean Uram wasn't forcing the others to drink his toxic blood . . . or worse. "Thank you for the information."

"Don't thank me. Just keep Ellie safe from whatever monster you've let loose."

Yes, Uram was a monster. With a monster's strength. Raphael's heart suddenly sped to a killing beat, though the air was still, the winds silent. "Give Dmitri the details." Handing back the phone, he took off from the balcony. His wing ached but he pushed onward, attempting to contact Illium as he flew.

A dull silence was his only answer-not the blankness of death, but something close. He got a little more when he tried Elena. Pain and nausea and anger.

He arrowed a thought toward Dmitri. Forget the bodies for now. Find Elena.

I'm contacting my men.

Jason. The black-winged angel was a master at coordinating the wings of angels under Raphael's command. Locate Illium. He's down.

I'm on my way. I'll brief the wings en route.

Raphael flew harder, cursing his own stupidity. Uram didn't need to rest to heal, not when he could hasten the process through blood. Another advantage of the bloodborn, another thing that made them feel as if they'd made the right choice. At this point, Uram would believe himself sane-he'd begun to think, to make decisions, but his personality was warped on the deepest level, his brain swimming in the toxin.

The worst thing, Raphael thought as he pushed himself to reach Elena, was that such devolution didn't happen overnight. Uram's servants had to have known but, unlike Raphael's powerful Seven, the other archangel had kept no one strong nearby. No one but Michaela. Raphael's mouth twisted-he was sure the woman who'd once been called the Queen of Constantinople had helped her lover evade the protocols set in place to prevent exactly this type of thing. Perhaps she'd wanted Uram dead, but more likely, she'd wanted to see what would happen, ascertain if the rest of the Cadre was lying to her.

He reached the part of Manhattan directly across from Castle Point, the spot where Elena had last checked in. "I have a good feeling about this," she'd said. "The scent's been diffused by the moisture in the air, but I'm going to keep circling until I hit a stronger concentration."

"I'll send more angels your way."

"No, don't pull them off the grid searches yet. This could be a trick. I'll get Illium to contact you if I think I have a bead on him."

Elena had obviously been far closer to the Angel of Blood than she'd believed.

As he flew over the area, looking for her car, his eyes-sharp, like a raptor's-found Illium instead. The angel's blue wings stood out even as he lay half-submerged beneath a pier. Diving, Raphael ignored the onlookers who'd begun to gather on the pier as well as the rescue boat powering Illium's way. Several humans had actually jumped in and were helping to keep Illium's face out of the water, though they'd been unable to lift him given the weight of his waterlogged wings. They scattered at Raphael's approach.

Scooping the unconscious angel out of the water, he rose to the sound of camera shutters and cries of wonder mixed with sorrow. Illium had become well-known in the city since his arrival from duties at the Refuge, his blue wings distinctive, his personality infectious. They thought him dead, forgetting that he was immortal.

Uram could have killed Illium, but he'd chosen the faster option and disabled, clearing the way to his real target. Illium, wake. Raphael held position high above the cloud layer, Illium's shattered body cradled in his arms. The other angel's wings were torn, his bones broken from the high-velocity impact with the water. Bruises and cuts marked his skin where he'd probably hit something in the river. He'd lost an eye.

It would all heal. That didn't mean it wouldn't hurt. But his flamboyance aside, Illium was a soldier, a fighter. Which was why Raphael didn't let him rest. Rather, he focused his mental abilities and slapped the angel awake from within his very mind. Illium came to with a gasp. But no scream.

A single perfect eye opened. "Bastard was waiting in the clouds," he whispered, not wasting time with unnecessary apologies. "Glamour. Ellie . . ." He shuddered, fighting his body's need to go into a healing sleep. "I think she saw me go down. C-c-close. He looked healed . . . but was weak." The last word was almost soundless as his body literally kicked him into the deep comalike state from which no one and nothing would be able to wake him for at least a week.

Though he was far younger than Raphael, he might just be old enough to enter anshara itself. It would allow him to heal much quicker, dampening the agony and rebuilding his body before he woke. Otherwise, once the coma broke, he'd be in as much pain as any other being. With so many broken bones, it would be excruciating.

Raphael knew that too well. His mother's last words to him had been said as he lay bleeding on the ground, his wings shredded so badly he'd had no chance to slow his descent. He'd hit the earth at a velocity that would've torn a mortal to pieces. His body hadn't survived too well either. He'd lost pieces. Young as he'd been, it had taken years for everything to fully re-form. Those in anshara healed exponentially faster. But there was no magic cure.

Not unless you were a bloodborn angel bloated with toxin.

Jason's black wings appeared through the clouds. He held out his arms, face drawn. "I'll take him."

Raphael handed over Illium's body. "The rest of the wing?"

"I told them to search for the hunter."

"Get Illium to a healer." He dove back down to the pier, pulling glamour around himself before he came into view. What Illium had fought to tell him was very important. If Uram hadn't healed on all levels, then he wouldn't have been able to fly far with Elena's body weighing him down.

Live, Elena, he said, willing her to fight, to break out of the darkness that cloaked her mind in a suffocating prison. Live. I have not given you permission to die.

Nothing. Silence. Such silence as he'd never before known.

Live, Elena. A warrior does not lie down for the enemy. Live!

"Be quiet," Elena murmured, pulled out of blissful sleep by an arrogant voice that insisted she get up. "I wanna sleep."

"You dare give me orders, mortal?" Ice-cold water splashed across her face, snapping her awake to a nightmare.

At first, she couldn't quite assimilate what it was that she was seeing. Her mind simply refused to put the pieces together. And there were so many pieces. Torn, distorted, impossible pieces. Her stomach twisted, the nausea from the head injury she'd sustained when Uram smashed her face into the dash, merging with the horror of the here and now.

She fought it, refusing to reward the monster with her terror. But it was hard. They'd all been wrong-Sara, Ransom, even Raphael. Uram hadn't taken fifteen victims. He'd taken others, people who wouldn't be missed. Rotting limbs, a gleaming rib cage, evidence of his vicious madness littered the room. A room without light, without air. A cell. A crypt. A-

Snap out of it!

It was her hunter sense, the thing that had marked her from birth.

Swallowing her panic, she focused, and realized the room wasn't, in fact, pitch-dark. Uram had blacked out the windows but some light-too sharp, too white to be natural, which meant she'd been out long enough for night to fall-seeped in around the edges. It was that light that had allowed her to see the sickening truth of the room. Torn bodies thrown about like so much garbage. But not all were in pieces. Against the opposite wall, chains locked around his wrists, she saw the withered body of someone who'd once been human.

Then that dried-out husk blinked and she realized he was still alive. "Jesus!" It came out before she could stop herself.

The monster in front of her, the thing that wore the shell of an archangel, followed her gaze. "I see you've made Robert's acquaintance. He was a loyal one, followed me across the oceans without complaint. Did you not, Bobby?"

Elena watched the cruel humor on Uram's face and realized she'd never understood true evil until this moment. Robert was a vampire, that much was clear. No human that desiccated would still be alive-it looked as if the vampire had lost every ounce of moisture in him but for his large, glistening eyes. Eyes that pleaded with her for deliverance.

Uram turned back to her, his own eyes-a vivid, beautiful green-dancing with laughter. "He thought he was special because I took him with me. Unfortunately, I forgot about him for a while." That power-filled gaze became angry, tinged with red. The sparkling green was suddenly putrid.

Elena stayed very, very still in the corner where he'd dumped her, wondering if he'd thought to take her weapons. She couldn't feel anything on her body but maybe he'd missed one or two-like the ice pick-thin knife in her hair, or the flat blade that slid into a sheath built into her shoe. She flexed her toes and felt the reassuring firmness of her boots. Ransom had given her the boots as a gag gift-she'd never loved the idiot more than she did at that moment.

Uram's eyes bored into her. "But my loyal Bobby did come in useful"-back to Robert-"didn't you? He made a most appreciative audience for my little games."

Elena saw the way the vampire's hands curled in the chains, the way his wasted body flinched, and felt her fury ignite. Uram had to know what he was doing-vampires were almost immortal, but they needed blood to truly survive. By not allowing him to feed, he'd effectively caused Robert's body to eat itself. The vampire would never actually die, not of starvation. But his every breath had to be agony by now. And if this went on much longer . . .

Elenas thoughts filled with the one and only case of vampiric starvation she'd ever encountered. It had been in a textbook she'd studied during her final year at Guild Academy. That vampire-S. Matheson-had been caught in a family feud involving his sire. Someone had locked him in a concrete coffin and buried him in the foundations of a building under construction.

He'd been found ten years later.

Alive.

If you could call it that. The contractor who'd unwittingly smashed open the coffin thought he'd found a skeleton, and called the authorities. The M.E. was excited by the prospect of mummified remains. He arrived at the site with a small crime scene crew and they began shooting photos, taking measurements as the workmen watched. Then one of the crime scene techs cut her finger while turning the head of the skeleton and before she knew it, she'd lost the finger, the bone sliced clean in half by one razor-sharp fang.

The paramedics had been called. S. Matheson's body had regenerated under the constant flow of transfusions. But his brain had undergone some kind of an irreversible metamorphosis. S. Matheson didn't speak, didn't do anything but smile like a fool and wait for someone to come too close. Three doctors lost parts of their bodies to the flesh eater before S. Matheson disappeared without a trace. The general consensus was that the angels had taken care of him. Not good for business to have a vampire who ate people.

Robert hadn't reached that stage yet. There was still something in those eyes, something that felt and understood humanity. She watched as Uram stalked to the vampire, blocking Elena's view of his actions. Then Robert made an awful sound, and she barely stopped herself from screaming at Uram. Instead, she took the opportunity to slide her foot closer. Closer.

Uram turned, a slight smile on his lips. "What do you think of my work?"

She'd girded herself, knowing he'd done something monstrous. But nothing could've prepared her for the sight that met her-pity choked her throat, sent rage rocketing through her. Uram had taken Robert's eyes. Now, holding her gaze, Uram took the slippery orbs to his mouth, as if about to bite in. She didn't blink.

"You're a strong one." Chuckling, he threw the orbs to the floor, crushing them beneath the heel of his boot. "No nutrition."

Dismissing a Robert who seemed to have stopped moving, he wiped his hands fastidiously on a handkerchief and came toward her. "You are very quiet, hunter. No heroics to save the poor vampire?" A raised brow that was incongruously regal.

"He's only another bloodsucker," she said, sick to her stomach. "I was hoping he'd keep you distracted long enough that I could escape."

He smiled and the chill that crept up her spine felt like the crawling of a thousand spidery fingers. Then, still without speaking, he crouched down, put his hand on her ankle. Smiled wider. And twisted. The snap of the bone sent pain shrieking through her, so hot and vicious that she screamed.

Raphael!

She felt her vision blur as the smothering wings of unconsciousness closed around her once more. But something caught her mind before it could spiral down into darkness. Tell me where you are, Elena.

Sweat curled down the sides of her face, stuck her T-shirt to her back. But she held on to that voice, Raphael's voice, and clawed her way back to full consciousness. Uram was still crouched in front of her, watching her with the well-pleased expression of someone who'd cornered his prey. "You smell like acid," she whispered. "Jagged, bright, distinctive."

His expression changed, became curious in an almost childish way. But it was the most distorted version of a child's curiosity she'd ever seen. "What about Bobby?" Another smile even as his eyes turned red again. "He wants to know."

She swallowed. Water, she said inside her mind, hoping like hell that Raphael was listening. I can smell water. "Bobby," she whispered. "Bobby smells like dust and earth and death." And there's a noise. She concentrated. Cutting, chopping, a steady rhythm. I should know what it is.

Uram stroked a strand of hair off her face. She waited for him to snap her neck, but he drew back his hand a moment later. Even as relief whispered through her, she realized he was feeding on her terror, torturing her with uncertainty. The bastard was keeping her live for his pleasure . . . or was he?

"Why am I alive?" she asked him.

Be quiet, Elena.

Oh, shush. I'm cranky when I'm hurt.

Uram smiled again, his hand squeezing her ankle. The pain almost threw her into the void, but he knew exactly when to relax the pressure. "Because you're his weakness. It made more sense not to kill you once I thought about it."

It's a trap. Don't you dare let him hurt you.

I will deal with Uram. Your task is to remain alive.

The order almost made her smile, even in the depths of nightmare. "I'm a toy, nothing more."

"Of course." Releasing her ankle, Uram waved off her words.

His ready agreement shook her more than she liked. But hey, given her current projected life span, she figured she had the right to love idiotically. Love. Oh, hell. "If I'm so forget-table, what's my value as a hostage?"

"Because, hunter," he said with no hint of fang, as smooth as a vampire who'd been around for a few hundred years, "Raphael is possessive about his toys."

Icicles grew in her heart at the certainty in that tone. "You sound very sure."

"In the time of beauty, of kings and queens, we were in the same court for a century." He tilted his head. "You did not know?"

"Toy, remember." She gave him a close-lipped smile, figuring her real feelings would do for now. "He doesn't talk to me much."

"Raphael has never been a talker, not like Charisemnon." He made a moue of distaste. "That one talks forever and says nothing. I've wished a thousand times that I could crush his voice box. Perhaps I'll get the chance now." He frowned, pushing aside the femur near his foot. "The smell in here is atrocious." Anger filmed his eyes.

She decided not to point out that he'd caused the problem. "You were telling me about Raphael's toys," she said, sensing that topic would keep her alive longer than if he became enraged by the charnel house odor of the place.

His attention returned to her, and, for the first time, she noticed the strange striations on his skin, fine lines of white that ran down his face. It was almost as if she were seeing blood vessels, but they were the wrong color-filled with something other than blood.

"We had our pick of slaves at court," he told her, his voice so deep and true that she could understand how so many had once fallen under his spell. And might yet again if he wasn't stopped. "They were there for our pleasure and we used them at will."

Her throat tightened at the sheer disregard in his voice. "Humans?"

"Too weak for the most part, not lovely enough. No, our slaves were the vampires-then, as now, it was their duty to worship us."

That wasn't quite what it said in the Contract, but Elena played along. "So your slaves were the ones you Made?"

"No, that would have been tedious. They were traded. Oh, you feel sorry for them." He laughed and it wasn't an ugly sound. "They begged to come to our beds. There were fights in the harems if one was chosen over the other."

She expected he was telling the truth. "A win-win situation."

"There were favorites-"

She was only half listening, trying with all her might to figure out where they were. That whipping, cutting sound had faded into silence, but she could hear something else. Cars. Near a road and water. Uram's injured wing looked fine, but from the way it dragged on the floor, she had a feeling it wasn't yet fully functional. So they had to be close to where he'd attacked Illium. God, she hoped the blue-winged angel was okay-the way he'd hit the water would've torn a human apart.

Can't be sure, but I think we're on the banks of the Hudson, close to where Illium went down, she thought to Raphael, hoping like hell that he was somehow blocking Uram from intruding into her mind, in a room with blackened windows. The smell! It's disgusting in here. Look for an abandoned building, warehouse, boathouse-or the neighbors would've called the authorities by now.

Unless, she thought, these corpses were the neighbors. But if that were the case, someone would've reported at least one of them missing. She was focusing so hard that she made a mistake. Her eyes wandered. A hard squeeze of her ankle and suddenly pain was all she was, every one of her nerve endings on fire. This time, she couldn't fight the rising blackness, couldn't hold on to the world.

If you die, Guild Hunter, I will make you a vampire.

She scowled inwardly and fought, fought so damn hard. I don't want to drink blood. And you can't Make me if I'm dead. It felt like swimming through syrup, but finally, she broke back through the surface of consciousness . . . to promptly lean over and expel the contents of her stomach in a bilious flood. When she finished, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and raising her head with deliberate slowness, she found that Uram hadn't changed position.

"You weren't paying attention," he said in the most reasonable of tones.

She caught something with her peripheral vision. "I'm sorry. It hurts." I can see a hard hat. The walls aren't finished. Look for construction. And that pile-her weapons! Almost within touching distance.

"I do hope Raphael gets here soon." A disappointed frown. "You're not going to last much longer."

"Are you certain he'll come?"

"Oh, yes. The slaves? He used to fight with us if we put a bruise on the one he'd claimed as his." Uram obviously found that amusing. "Can you imagine? He cared."

The line between monster and not was suddenly far clearer than she'd ever believed. Raphael had somehow remained on one side, Uram on the other. "That was a long time ago," she replied. "He's changed."

Uram paused, as if thinking. "Yes. Maybe he won't come. Maybe I'll leave you here." His eyes laughed. "Perhaps I'll tie you to Bobby, let him feed. What do you say, Bobby?" he called out.

The withered thing on the other side of the room seemed to whisper a response. Elena didn't hear it but Uram apparently did. It made him laugh so hard that he rocked back on his heels. "I'm delighted to see that you haven't lost your sense of humor," he said, chuckling. "I think for that alone, I'll give you what you want. I'll put you to the mortal's breast and let you suckle like a babe."

The horrifying image made Elena's anger turn cold, hard, dangerous. She had no problem with feeding a dying vampire-hell, she was a human being, not a sadistic freak like Uram. But she sure as hell wasn't going to be tortured to death by a mind Uram had already broken. Using the archangel's momentary lapse in concentration, she went to reach for the knife in her boot. Her ankle screamed at the small movement but that wasn't what stopped her.

The scent of wind, of rain, of the sea. Where are you in the room?

Opposite the windows, with Uram in front of me. There's a vampire-starved-on the wall across and to the left of me, next to the window. His name is Robert.

His life matters little. He enjoys torturing children.